


Less Exhaustion This Time Around (But More Pain)

by orphan_account



Series: The Telepath's Immortal [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternative Universe - Telepathy, Episode: s01e03 Ghost Machine, Ianto Jones & Toshiko Sato Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-09 00:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10399152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: All Ianto wanted to do was meditate in peace and then maybe cry for a bit and then have crappy pizza with Tosh and then fall into bed and pass out for 12 hours.Instead, he passed out for the same(-ish) amount of time but preceded by pain and headaches and a lack of aspirin and the bloody Ghost Machine.And then, there was Jack.





	1. Aspirin is a Gift From the Gods

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyyyy, my summaries still suck, you are an absolute star if you made it this far (double ayyyyy, that rhymed).
> 
> The response to this series has been so inspiring and lovely and amazing to read, thank you all so much!!!

“Owen, Gwen. Left into the alley. Right, thirty metres,” Toshiko commanded, her orders sharp. Her words bit through Ianto’s meditative state, but he simply pressed deeper into his consciousness. Grey-blue swam across his closed eyes in a swirl of colour, a deep breath of calm after Tosh’s no-nonsense, work voice.

He didn’t meditate as much nowadays - during his time with his Gifted clan, hidden away from humans, it was custom to meditate for hours on end almost every day, but he hadn’t found much time, nor any need to focus so intently as of late. When Gwen was hired, the requirement of it increased tenfold.

Headaches became worse when Gwen was around, which was almost always. Because he used his Gift more often nowadays, his mind was a mess and pain flared in his temples every time he tried to form a new Link with anyone (or sometimes, if he tried to communicate telepathically with anyone other than Toshiko). Tosh had pressured him into meditating for a while now, especially after the incidents of Gwen’s first day, a gentle coddling that warmed Ianto’s heart.

Despite it usually helping to meditate, the situation was slightly different. For one, Toshiko was in the room; meditation was usually intended to be private affairs, shared only with those dearest to the participant. Which, now that he thought of it, Tosh was dearest to him.

“Got it! Got a visual. Suspect's male, wearing a hoodie. Go, Gwen!”

The sharpness of Tosh’s tone pulled Ianto up from his focus slightly, an irritation for an instant that kept him nearer to the surface of his own mind. “You star, you did it!” - a pause - “No, you got it.” The confusion but insistence in her voice bewildered Ianto and his attention failed him for a second.

A split second later, Ianto felt a strange presence in the back of his mind, a niggling thought that he struggled to ignore. His hands twitched unpleasantly for a moment; then, agonising pain at his skull, encompassing his entire upper body.

He screeched, grabbing at his head and doubling over in pain. A choking sensation in the back of his throat strained him and he struggled suddenly to breathe. Toshiko’s hands pressed at his arched back, holding him steady as he involuntarily trashed, hissing sharply through his teeth.

“G-Gwen, something, something’s w-wrong with Gwen, she, she-”

Darkness clouded over Ianto’s vision and his heartbeat was heavy in his ears. Tosh’s terrified voice filtered in and out of his head, just like how he himself was floating in and out of consciousness. After a minute of horrific jumping between hearing Tosh crying and hearing absolutely nothing, he lapsed into an almost coma-like state. He couldn’t hear Tosh’s pleas anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Ianto came to in the basement, wrapped in one of Toshiko’s blankets. He sighed under his breath, burrowing into the warmth there. There was an unpleasant ache in his ankles and feet as if he’d fallen over many, many, many times - he assumed that he probably had fallen. Toshiko must have helped him down to the confines of the basement. It had become his safe haven during the few weeks Gwen had been working at Torchwood, and it had been furnished (to an extent) - there was a futon in the corner and every single blanket that he and Toshiko found in her loft scattered about the room haphazardly.

Breathing in deeply, Ianto stretched from his undignified sprawl on the cushioned ground to a surprisingly upright and steady position given the pounding headache he was suffering. Slowly, he gathered himself, taking his time to move up to the higher levels of the Hub.

Toshiko seemed rather surprised to see him appear in the main Hub, his face chalky and pale. She gasped, holding up a finger and racing into the kitchen for a second. The rustle of hidden from prying eyes teabags and the loud whistle that signalled the kettle boiling filled the room, deafening in Ianto’s ears.

He went to his desk, falling heavily into the chair. His shoulders clicked into place nastily when Ianto rested his head on the counter. Groaning lowly, he pulled at his hair, a bias he had, unfortunately, habitualised whenever he was stressed (which was always) during university.

A gentle hand brushed against his own, pulling it away from his curls and replacing it with a soft stroking. Calmly he grasped at Tosh’s fingers, giving them a mellow squeeze and glancing up blearily.

There was a steaming cup of tea by his head, a delicious herbal smell wafting from it, enticing him towards it. Peeking at Toshiko through his fingers and receiving a nod of assent, he grasped at the warm mug in his hands. He took a deep drag of the tea, humming appreciatively at the delectable liquid.

“Why do you think you got hurt this time?”

Looking up at Tosh fuzzily, Ianto shrugged, relaxing against his chair and then instantly leaning back up again. He snapped his thin, deft fingers in Toshiko’s face for a second, another habit that Tosh had long since learnt to assimilate to, though not without the usual the-fuck-are-you-doing-Jones? expression plastered over her face.

“Ianto. Stop clicking. This must be something about Gwen because that’s what you kept muttering just before you passed out.” Tosh grabbed ahold of his hands, holding them securely in her lap, save for allowing him to drink periodically from her enticing herbal blend. Anxiously jiggling his knees, Ianto leant backwards slightly, taking a deep breath, trying to coax himself into a stage of serenity.

“I- er… I think it might be something to do with my Gift -” at Toshiko’s derisive snort, he reiterated - “And yes, I understand that that is a definite given, hush clover.Do you know what they found yet? Wait, wait, how long have I been out?”

Toshiko smiled marginally, sending Ianto a stream of direct, reassuring energy - it was something new that Tosh had found worked both ways with them and she took every opportunity to practice her recent skill (although, occasionally, her overpowering waves of power made Ianto feel like his skull was being used as a football).

“Surprisingly, only about twenty minutes. Don’t worry, Jack and Owen took Gwen to a late night cafe because she was shaken up by, and I quote, ‘seeing a ghost’. They’ll probably be back in a few minutes, though.”

Ianto hummed briefly in consideration, sipping his tea in an attempt to stall what precious time that they had left. “As painful as it was, whatever Gwen did amplify my awareness of all her emotions; I think-”

The blaring alarm of the cog door interrupted him. Jack ambled in, a small grey device in his hands, almost like a round-edged crescent moon with a rather interesting array of designs on the sides, raising it high for Toshiko to get a good look at. Following him was Owen and then Gwen, the latter pale faced and shaking, though with a flush of stark colour high on her cheeks, probably from the wintry cold in Cardiff during the night.

Almost guiltily, Ianto scrambled up gracelessly, slinking away to the kitchen. He heard Jack’s muffled voice drifting from Tosh’s desk, before drowning it out by refilling the coffee machine with luke-warm water left over in the kettle from Tosh’s lovely green tea - but, as lovely as it was, he wasn’t about to use a bleeding kettle to make coffee.

On auto-pilot, Ianto fixed five cups of his best coffee, spending extra care on Gwen’s; he knew already that the woman took her coffee with a lot of milk and a lot of sugar. What most people would deem too many sugar cubes, Gwen argued that it was far too little. As much as he was disgusted by how the ex-PC ruined his celestial nectar, she seemed to really need the sugar high right now.

Jack was leaning against Tosh’s desk when Ianto returned, bearing a tray of coffee. He nervously strolled over, setting a scaldingly hot mug by Tosh’s elbow, artfully balancing the tray with one hand, the mug (which really was very, very, very hot)in three fingers and setting aside a paperwork-free inch of space to set it down where Tosh couldn’t accidentally knock it over.

“You’re a star, Yan,” Tosh murmured, before swiftly tapping something into her annoyingly loud keyboard (Ianto put up with it. Owen, however, struggled - Ianto was almost certain Tosh kept that particular keyboard to piss off the medic).

Meanwhile, Jack blindly grabbed at one of the mugs and Ianto hissed awkwardly through his teeth when he saw which it was. “Er, that’s Gwen’s,” he acknowledged before Jack could take a tentative sip. Rather than seem vaguely annoyed, like Ianto had expected, Jack was simply inquisitive, a question written into his raised brow.

“Hellish amount of milk and sugar. She looked like, er, she needed it,” Ianto stammered. A warm, bubbly feeling travelled through his slip-slopping stomach at the appraising, tender look that Jack presented him with, setting down the basically white coffee.

“Rather thoughtful of you, Ianto.”

Blushing from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes, Ianto abruptly turned around, unable to stand the genuine, honest, delicate smile quirking Jack’s gorgeous lips. He mentally slapped himself for thinking such stupid, schoolgirl-in-love type things, ignoring the fact Jack was hot on his heels when he walked over to the autopsy bay.

Owen and Gwen stood there separately, the woman gripping the bars above the lower room awfully tightly. Allowing Jack to check up on Gwen first, he handed Owen a coffee, who took it with a barely there, muttered ‘thanks’.

Gwen received hers gratefully, smiling brightly at the pale liquid. Risking it, Ianto cautiously directed a weak - but overpowering for someone like Gwen, who had little, to none experience with telepathy - flow of comfort to her. It probably had the same benefits as curling up with a loved one or bawling for a good hour or so.

“I- Thank you, Ianto,” Gwen whispered, her tone awed and seeping into the friendship territory of appreciation. Gratified, she took a slow drag, her eyes closing in pleasure at the taste; her authentic, and somewhat over the top ‘thank you’ shocked Ianto into silence and seemed to mystify Jack, who still seemed pleased that at least Gwen wasn’t at everyone’s throats.

Toshiko gave the rundown of the security feed, pausing every so often to point out something specific. There was no sign of any time jump or anything strange occurring around Gwen, but according to her impassioned reply, something definitely did.

“No. It, it was as real as this is. More real. I didn't just see that little boy. I could hear what he was thinking. I could feel it. Like I was lost.”

Her voice cracked slightly and Ianto winced. All of a sudden, Toshiko grabbed at his collar front, hoisting him down to her eye level. He struggled slightly to free himself, hissing quietly under his breath. “What?”

 “Didn’t you hear what Gwen said? She felt exactly what the little boy was feeling - I get that you’re running on basically half an hour of sleep, but try to keep up, dear. I think that the Ghost Machine is somehow affiliated with telepathy.”

Ianto straightened up, mulling over the frantically spoken words for a moment. It made complete sense, of course, but it wasn’t the main thing that Ianto took from the conversation. “Ghost Machine?”  
Offended, Toshiko folded her arms and glared at him, disrupted only by her tiny giggle. “I think that it is a fantastic name.”

He felt a sudden pang up his spine, and Toshiko cried out sharply, a sudden garble of unintelligible words followed by, “Jack, don't!” He spun around, met by the sight of Jack, his fingers poised over the two buttons on the top of the ‘Ghost Machine’. Swallowing thickly, he grabbed ahold of Toshiko’s desk to steady himself, relaxing when Jack carefully set aside the device, insulted by the insinuation that he would activate the machine.

“Toshiko, where do we start?” he added, walking over to the tech’s desk once more. Ianto straightened marginally, licking his lips restlessly when Jack stood right behind him, his chest brushing against Ianto’s back.

He was so tired, he got hung up over Jack’s mere presence - the changing attitudes towards him from Jack also didn’t help. “The guy you were chasing, I've got lots of CCTV, so tracking him down's going to be easy. The little boy? You said there was a name on the card around his neck?” Toshiko remarked, glancing up at Jack, her lips pressed together in a tight, reassuring smile.

Gwen nodded excitedly, trotting over to Tosh’s desk, trapping Ianto inside with an effective meat wall of an attractive American, an exhausted tech and bouncing on the spot Welshwoman. “Flanagan. Tom Erasmus Flanagan.” It definitely wasn’t a Welsh name, which fit with the theory that Gwen had that he was simply travelling here.

Jack crooned quietly, a low hum in the back of his throat. He leant forward slightly, grasping Ianto’s tense shoulder for balance, causing a shiver to run through the younger man. Smirking, Jack ordered Toshiko to search for the name. Meanwhile, Ianto fumed silently, because why did Jack have to do this now, when Gwen was so shaken and Ianto was so stressed - Jesus, the immortal was so ultimately confusing.

“Found him. Flanagan, Thomas Erasmus. 74 Brynaeron Terrace, Butetown. He's in the phonebook,” Owen called over sarcastically. Ianto couldn’t help but chuckle.

 

* * *

 

Owen and Gwen went to visit Tom Flannigan after a short debriefing from Jack. He assigned them each a task, Gwen asking immediately to go social call, which, Ianto berated himself, was perfectly understandable. (He was continuously making an effort to try and be nice to the woman, as much as he sometimes struggled rather fruitlessly.)

“Toshiko and Ianto, you seem, once again, to be stuck with the boring job and I apologise; would you mind trying to dig up any information on this-”

“Ghost Machine. We think it should be called the Ghost Machine,” Toshiko interrupted, smiling a caffeinated grin. Jack chuckled softly, albeit confused, allowing the funny little interference. He continued along, this time adding the words ‘Ghost Machine’, Tosh beaming excitedly at Ianto when he did.

 “Alright, why are you so delighted at this job?” Ianto asked whilst they walked down to the Archive to pull some files on both telepathy and other similar devices )which Ianto had all neatly catalogued in his head and the large filing cabinets that filled the room).

 “Well, I was trying to find a silver lining in this grim situation,” - she rifled through a cabinet marked ‘1990-1992’ in Ianto’s neat print, knowing for a fact that Torchwood had a particularly interesting case on a group of telepathic cats in suburban Cardiff that year - “and I succeeded. I think.”

Ianto arched an eyebrow, ransacking his own cabinet marked ‘Telepathy’ - most of the files inside had been well leafed through, a couple of the pages dog-eared when Ianto got too tired to find a bookmark (and didn’t mind messing up the undignified, handwritten scrawl that the previous Archiver had filled the forms out in).

“If this device is telepathic, which is what we are almost certain it is, could it not also, somehow -maybe this is a long shot -” Toshiko babbled, concluding swiftly when Ianto sent her an exasperated look. “Could it be linked to the Gifted clans? I mean, it hurt you specifically, but some of your old Gifted buddies would probably have called you if they had a similar experience. Unless the machine only affects telepaths in the nearby area, but you were pretty far away. Oh! Oh! Maybe it’s because you’re Linked to Gwen?”

Ianto shushed her, flinching slightly at her last words. “Gwen and I have a Line, not a Link. In fact, most Gifteds wouldn’t even class the Line as a significant step in a telepathic relationship between two species. The Demetae clan - which, yes, is the Welsh clan, and therefore mine, you mustn’t seem too enthusiastic, clover - the clan are really traditional. So, that’s that.”

“None of my Gifted Link-mates has experienced any pain because of the machine’s activation as far as I know, but I can check later on with Alyssa and David. I think you’ve met them, Alyssa had purple hair, David was the nervous one, you thought that they should be together, Al is surprisingly the more nervous of the two in terms of romance, etc. etc.”

“But, I suppose it could be telepathic or elemental in some way. I’m leaning towards the former, considering how Gwen reacted with the device. I don’t think we should make any set-in-stone judgements until we do some research or something, blah blah blah, my head hurts.”

By the time Ianto had finished explaining his thoughts, they’d gathered a hefty pile of files and had trudged back up to the conference room, muttering along the way, so as to not alert attention from a busily working Jack in his own office.

Once they’d set up their dossiers on the table, Ianto flopped onto the chair, sighing heavily. His head still hurt, faint remnants of the burning pain that the first activation of the Ghost Machine presented himself with.

“Take a painkiller.”

“I would if I had some. Stop pestering me, let me get some work done.”

“I apologise profusely for caring about you, Yan.”

“You keep calling me that; it’s nice, I’m not complaining. I’ll get some painkillers when I next go out, I’m feeling better already,” Ianto insisted, grabbing a random case file and leafing through it half-heartedly. Toshiko groaned heavily, pulling her own file towards her and slowly started skimming the first pages.

For about two hours, the pair of them worked in near silence, other than bouncing theories off one another, giggling at the more fantastical ones. By the time that Jack popped his head round to see them, they had five pages between them of scrawled comments, small points from each relevant file written messily down, silly little doodles in the margin for entertainment’s sake.

“I hate to be that guy, but I’m dying for a coffee. You mind?”

Ianto jumped at the opportunity to escape from the stuffy office that really had far too many folders for it to be bearable. “I’ll nip round to the Costa, we don’t have any coffee beans. You want anything else?”

“Is research really so bad?” Jack laughed, walking fully into the office. Tosh smiled pleasantly up at him, glancing pointedly at the massive stack of files. Jack chuckled again, pulling out a chair to sit backwards on - which annoyed Ianto to no end, chairs were intended with a back to support the spine, not the chest, what was Jack even doing - and speaking to the both of them.

“Have you got any ideas on what it might be? I’ve been dealing with phone calls from UNIT all day, so I’ve only had a couple of minutes to check it over. It’s nothing I recognise, but maybe my favourite tech and my favourite Archiver can tell me something different?”

“Well, our favourite Archiver, who is sporting a lovely blush right now, has a list of possible origins based on this research. We think it might be affiliated with an alien race of telepaths. Oh, and he drew some people in the margins with various versions of torture, don’t ask, long story. All his notes from uni look like this, I have no idea how he passed.”

 ‘Yes,’ Ianto thought, ‘I can always count on Tosh to share every detail of my life with Jack.’ He’d long since accommodated to Toshiko’s strange tendencies. Out loud, he announced, “You two can continue to attack me if you want, and I’ll go grab coffee, have fun.”

“Get something sweet to go with it. Like a Danish or something!”

“Will do!”


	2. Hospital Beds are Uncomfortable

“Our friend with the alien machine in his pocket is one Sean Harris aka Bernie.”

Gwen, who was in the middle of sticking up a sickeningly bright red card, allowed Jack to pause for a second before adding her own quip to the mix. “And what he's doing with an alien machine is anyone's guess. Nineteen years old. String of convictions. Burglary, shoplifting, credit cards-”

The woman trailed off, her lips firmly stuck between her two front teeth as she glared at the research pasted up on the walls. Ianto was unsure why the woman actually ever compiled the information considering that the team got on tremendously without it; the last time Gwen had tried the police casework route, it had been her first day and it was still Toshiko who solved out what the alien gas was in the end.

“Do warn me if he’s dropping it,” Ianto remarked quietly, causing Toshiko besides him to giggle slightly around her cup of coffee. She rattled off his convictions in more detail, beaming at the hilarity that was the awkward ‘ _criminal mastermind_ ’ Bernie Harris.

A loud buzzing and the tiny explosions radiating from the old game that Owen was messing with burst into the air and Gwen flinched in annoyance, the feeling bouncing off of Ianto and worsening his still throbbing headache. He’d taken Tosh’s advice and swallowed a few painkillers, but they hadn’t helped him much.

“Got anywhere with that mystery object?”

Jack smirked at Owen’s comment, oh-so-pleased with himself that he would be able to praise the machine quite so extensively (he loved the sound of his own voice, Ianto noted. ‘ _Honestly_ ,’ he thought, ‘ _I quite like it too, so Jack can just keep on talking. And talking._ And talking _; he really doesn’t need_ any _encouragement…’_ ).

“Alien, of course. Gorgeous nanotechnology, makes NASA look like Toys 'R' Us.”

Ianto imagined he’d be more in awe of the Ghost Machine if it hadn’t nearly blown his brains out with the force of the pain it delivered to him, hand-wrapped. Snapping to attention at Owen’s sharp retort that Jack 'hadn’t found anything', Gwen explained. ”At the station, it was doing this. When I held it, it lit up and went mad.”

“This kid, Bernie, where does he live?” Jack interrupted and Toshiko took a moment to glance at her research before answering ‘Splott’.

“Alright, Owen, Gwen, Tosh and I will go try and find this Bernie Harris kid in Splott. Ianto, I want you to compile any more research you can; if you find anything important, don’t hesitate to check it out.”

With that, he stood, grabbing the SUV keys from his desk and graciously accepting his coat that Ianto handed to him kindly. He awarded the telepath with a winning smile that Ianto couldn’t help but return shyly.

 

* * *

 

Ianto had a half second of warning in the form of Owen’s panic before he dropped to the ground.

The young man was out in the middle of Cardiff - he’d asked some of his university friends from around the area if they’d ever seen anyone that met Bernie’s description and come up with three possible places. He was on his way from an unsuccessful second to the final flat when a sharp, inhuman shot of pain burst against his skull.

Shouting, Ianto fell to the tarmac, gasping as the pain intensified. It stayed, resting languidly at his temples, before driving up to his eyelids and causing flowers of red to blossom in his vision - funny, he hadn’t even realised that his eyes were closed.

He opened his eyes; they were bright with pain and adrenaline but seemed almost sunken into his face. Coiled around each other were his hands, the only inch of skin visible to him, which was ashen-gray and bloodless. There was a pair of scruffy Converse trainers running towards him, and a pair of brogues leading from knelt legs beside him. The owner had a low, baritone voice, which calmly told him that an ambulance was on its way.

Sluggishly, he closed his eyes again, colourful spots dancing across his eyelids as he sucked himself into a deeper place to cope. It didn’t help. Suddenly, another harsh volcano of excruciating agony erupted in his abdomen, trailing up torturously slowly at the same pace of his heavy heartbeat to his brain.

The now rather large group by Ianto’s standards flinched when the young man screeched. It wasn’t like the bearable and almost funny sounds of some man being tortured in an old Tarantino film; it had a raw quality to it, the realness of a person so consumed by pain that they knew no end nor beginning to anything but suffering.

His cheeks were wet with tears, that he didn’t even realise that he was shedding. Saltiness filled his mouth, both at the tears falling down when his panting mouth opened and the ragged red wound on the inside of his bitten cheek. It spurted crimson, staining his lips and teeth in a ghoulish grin.

Hazily, Ianto tried to clear the pain from his mind, attempting to focus on his Link with Tosh or his two Gifted friends, Alyssa and David, who might even have been able to help redirect the pain away from his skull - it would have been exhausting for them, however, so Ianto quickly chose to concentrate on Toshiko’s dull presence in his mind.

He managed to spark something through the tendrils of their Link before succumbing to the fatigue in his weary bones and closing in on himself, a sharp whimper escaping his lips.

Finally, just as he heard the deafening sirens in the background, Ianto fell into sweet oblivion.

 

* * *

 

The door was unremarkable and Jack was confused as to why such a simple, little, oak structure could conceal behind such a sick, agonised mess as Ianto must be at that moment. Through the blurry glass in the centre of the grainy brown wood, Jack could make out two fuzzy figures.

One was in drab colours, a pale blue pinafore over a rather thickly muscled torso; a nurse, obviously, but she could have as easily been a professional body-builder. She had dirty blonde hair tied up in a messy ponytail and was hunched over the hospital bed, fiddling with something on the IV.

The person on the bed was clearly shivering and despite how fresh the young man had looked this morning, his features were gaunt and grey. Well, now that Jack thought about it, Ianto was rather pale and sallow-looking that morning.

The blonde haired nurse quietly left the hospital room, allowing the team a quick glance at Ianto whilst it swung on its creaking hinges. Apologetically, the nurse smiled, attempting to reassure the group with a simple quirk of her lips.

It didn’t work.

May, the pretty, young, brunette nurse that showed them to Ianto’s room, opened the door for them, smiling politely as Toshiko raced in past Jack as he stood frozen in the doorway. At some silent prompting from May, Jack walked in numbly, flopping into the chair beside Toshiko.

Softly crying, barely recognising that she even was shedding tears, Tosh covered Ianto twitching hand with hers, rubbing it soothingly. Gwen and Owen entered the room; Gwen seemed concerned at the sight of Ianto’s frail frame, but Owen was angry, stung that he didn’t realise how much Ianto was suffering.

“Usually we don’t let people in this early - in fact, in most cases, we’d still be operating, but you lot have some special privileges. Can you please all state your names and occupations? I’m afraid that I didn’t quite catch them all that first time, and I need to write them down, you see?” May asked her voice high and floaty and awfully fake sounding. He was sure that she didn’t try to be, but the reassuring front that she hid behind irked Jack.

Each of them gave their credentials, Gwen stumbling over her own. When it came to Owen, he turned to face the nurse, his eyebrows pulled almost halfway down his face. “Doctor Owen Harper. Can you give me a run-down of Ianto’s condition? What are you treating him with? And for?”

Startled at his biting tone, May almost dropped her bright pink notepad, shuffling nervously on the spot. Her Barbie-doll grin slowly dropped from her face and was replaced by one of confusion and a hint of fear. “I understand that you lot are Torchwood and I know strange things must happen to you all the time, but...I have no idea what has happened to Mr Jones. We’ve never seen anything like this before, it’s completely new.

“We’re thinking some sort of brain aneurysm, but all the tests come back negative for it. His brain scans are only half finished and we usually wouldn’t be able to see them until they’re complete, but again, this is a pretty different situation to any normal brain aneurysm.

“According to the eyewitness account - we’ve only had one from the guy who rode in the ambulance with Jones since it only happened, maybe, five hours ago - he just fell to the ground, started screaming, grabbing at his head and...he said that Jones started glowing. I know, it’s crazy, but there’s literally no signs that anything was wrong with him but he’s in a coma-like state. He’d be in so much pain if he wasn’t high on morphine and sedative. Speaking of, it took a lot more than the usually dose to put him under-”

At the end of May’s long, breathless monologue that gradually grew to be more frantic as it dragged on, Owen cut in. “Are you telling me that there seems to be absolutely no medical reasons for Ianto to be like this? Please, just so we’re clear,” he questioned, his voice mocking with intention and holding a sense of self-deprecation.

And he must have been upset at himself; he was Ianto’s doctor and if someone had a gun to his head and forced him to answer, possibly even his friend. Being so caught up in the Ghost Machine and Gwen’s hiring, he hadn’t even noticed that Ianto was basically on the verge of death. Not to mention, May’s panic-stricken explanation with a rather bare amount of medical jargon had irritated him. She talked so very much and said so very little; at times of crisis like this, Owen despised people who rambled.

“Jones was affected strangely by the sedation we gave him. His frontal lobe became swollen and inflamed for maybe 30 seconds? And then, it went back down again, returned to its usual state,” May began again. This time, her voice was somewhat steady, wavering only once or twice (Owen felt that much calmer when she did so, turning to address the whole team as she spoke instead of just him. She didn’t waste much time on medical mumbo-jumbo).

“He had a lot of bruising over his body, especially on his abdomen, like he had been stabbed, but there is absolutely no evidence of a puncture mark. He also has some bruising on his temples and the back of his neck but we’re assuming that that’s where he grabbed at himself when he dropped down.”

Jack glanced down at Ianto during May’s talk, blocking it out for the most part. He trusted that Owen could give him the run-down later; right now, he was worried for the young Archiver that he’d grown so fond of. Cursing himself, Jack thought back to all the times he’d had Ianto sidelined in favour of Gwen and how, like Owen, he hadn’t even seen that Ianto was in such misery. But, being so utterly unsure of how the man made him feel, he’d pushed him away, hiding behind cheap flirting and lingering stares when Ianto wasn’t looking.

Evidently, only Toshiko knew that Ianto wasn’t well. She didn’t seem shell-shocked like the rest of the team, and instead was holding Ianto’s hand like it was her lifeline, muttering something quietly under her breath. Ianto twitched under her ministrations, his body relaxing minutely - Jack was staring so intently at the telepath that he noticed even the smallest of changes in his shivering frame.

The door slammed shut, startling Jack out of his reverie. May had left, angrily after Owen’s harsh insistence that she wasn’t a ‘proper’ nurse (given her complete lack of communication skills and annoyingly panicked behaviour in the face of new situations). Jack couldn’t really blame him.

He was allowed one more moment of peaceful gazing at Ianto’s slack-jawed, relaxed, pretty features before Gwen cut in. Jack flinched at her sudden high voice. “I...I understand that Ianto is sick and everything and I feel so bad for that, I really do. But...Bernie is still in trouble, yeah? We still need to find him and besides, we should do some research on what Owen saw when he activated the machine.”

Anger flared in Jack’s veins and along his tense spine at Gwen’s words; now that everything was laid out in front of him in the form of Ianto’s prone body and Gwen’s searching, self-righteous expression, Jack was irritated at Gwen’s every word.

Toshiko beat him to the response. “If you want to go bother with Bernie Harris, then you can. But Ianto is my friend and he could have died, so I think I’ll stay here,” she bit out, her words both hard and exhausted all at the same time. It almost seemed that Ianto’s entire body pulled taut until Toshiko went back to stroking his slender fingers, both to comfort him and herself.

“We’ll take shifts, alright? I don’t want to leave Ianto here alone, but we still need to finish the Ghost Machine case, as much as I don’t particularly want to. Tosh-”

“I want to take the first shift,” Owen said. Confused, Jack turned to question him but stopped at his determined, furrowed expression. Nodding, he glanced once more at Ianto and stood, his bones seeming heavier than before he saw Ianto’s fragility on a hospital bed. Toshiko said her final goodbyes whilst Jack waited patiently for her by the door. Gwen shifted agitatedly, a step away from tugging childishly on Jack’s coattails.

Quelling his irritation, Jack rubbed comfortingly at Toshiko’s shoulders and left Owen alone with Ianto.


	3. Ianto is a Magic Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your support and ideas for this fic, it's so kind of you! The next fic up will probably be a lil Toshiko and Ianto one-shot, because Ianto needs kindness and appreciation right now and he gets really sad in what I've planned for the Cyberwoman rewrite, soooo

Ianto woke in darkness.

A sudden flux of positive energy pleased him for a moment, a warm glow threading over his skin and bathing him in mellow serenity. It was like how Ianto’s mother hugged him, wrapping him in strong arms and filling his senses with her flowery, natural perfume and wood smoke. Smiling deliriously, he relaxed into the pillows beneath him, a lump from the bed pressing against his spine uncomfortably.

Pain soon returned to haunt him. It was harsh this time because his body refused to give in to unconsciousness. A moan of torment escaped his parted lips, hidden beneath the steady beeps of something in the background. Ianto rolled onto his side, feeling sick to his stomach.

A sharp tug at his elbow stopped his movement abruptly. Through the insistent affliction against his skull, his mind attempted to work out the new source of pain. Gradually, the headache he was sporting faded and he dragged his heavy arm to his other elbow, pawing blindly at it.

‘IV drip’, his mind supplied slowly. He identified the constant, high-pitched beeping as a heart monitor and...yes, he was in a hospital.

He really hated hospitals.

Amongst the time he had spent with humankind, Ianto had only been in hospital three times - now, fours times. They’d mainly been during university when his friends refused to accept his inane excuses to get him out of dealing with the doctors and the excessive amount of white and the needles sticking in and out of him everywhere.

Admittedly, this trip to the hospital was much calmer and less hectic than those of university. Ianto remembered distinctly that he missed the majority of his final exams in his second year after rather ‘traditional’ members of his Gifted clan found him one night on his way back to his apartment. At least that time, he had marks to show for his troubles - the doctors weren’t at as much of a loss then compared to now.

Sighing slowly, Ianto went limp as the pain completely receded from his weakening mind. A feverish smile curled his lips, flickering slightly when the blaring of the heart monitor pummelled at his temples. Groaning lowly, Ianto opened his eyes once more to be met with gloominess. His sight hadn’t much improved, but Ianto was undeterred, gritting his teeth in preparation.

‘I refuse to stay in a hospital,’ Ianto thought to himself and tugged the needle out of his arm. Gasping slightly, Ianto used the corner of his unsightly, pale green-blue gown to staunch the flow of blood. After a moment, he gingerly stretched his arm out, hissing slightly when the skin pulled tautly.

Ianto struggled to sit up, his back aching and cracking into place; he swung his legs out over the bed and his bare feet twitched when they touched the cold, tile floor. A vexatious pressure against Ianto’s mind startled him. Anxiously, Ianto bolted up as if to escape from the sudden not-quite-pain, jumpy after such a harsh attack on his mental defences.

His legs wobbled beneath him, not strong enough to support his own weight. Despite the frailty of his bones, Ianto still struggled upwards. After a moment, his legs straightened out and he was able to stumble over to the other side of the room, flicking the light on.

Ianto adjusted quickly to the bright light, glancing under the bed and by the drawers to see if the nurses had possibly left any of his clothes in the room. Sighing, he accepted that he’d have to skulk around in a horribly unflattering gown in search of some decent clothing.

Just as he snuck out of his room, he heard the sounding of a blaring alarm. A tinny voice over the speakers declared it as ‘code silver’, or as Ianto had grown to recognise, his sign to get his ass moving quicker. Code Silver meant ‘escaped patient’ and Ianto was all too used to it.

Ducking into a supply closet to hide from a nurse rushing to his room, Ianto took a deep breath to calm himself. Glancing down at his unsightly clothing, Ianto played with the idea of leaving the hospital without changing.

‘No,’ he thought to himself sluggishly, ‘I wouldn’t be able to get out like this.’ The pull at the back of his mind twinged once more and Ianto hissed through his teeth, refusing to give way to the insistent pressure. Scrunching his nose in concentration, Ianto lowered his defences slightly, so that his mental wall was the tiniest bit thinner - the thought filtered in rather calmly once he let it in, but it filled him with dread.

 _‘Ed Morgan is in danger_.’

 

* * *

 

Ianto was surprisingly lucky leading up to finding the rest of the team. He stole his dishevelled suit from a store room in the second floor of the hospital, dressing quickly and effectively without being noticed.

He didn’t sign out of the hospital himself, knowing that a patient wouldn’t be able to leave so soon after a code silver - the alarms had stopped after a few minutes and staff around the building didn’t seem all that concerned about Ianto skirting around.

Sneaking out of the hospital proved easy after Ianto had practised so much. The harder part of his evening, other than a pounding headache that he still sported, was finding Toshiko and his other teammates. Ianto’s first instinct was to use his elemental bond with his Clover to find her, but the sudden backlash of agony against his temples stopped him immediately.

Warily, Ianto pulled back from Toshiko’s mind. Instead, he pulled out his phone from his jacket pocket, sifting through the notes on the current case that Toshiko (God bless her) had texted him earlier that day - including a small amount on Ed Morgan.

Age, career, mental health...address! Bernie’s went along with it, a good kilometre between the two flats. Ianto knew that he would be able to sense Tosh’s presence as he grew closer to her, so it wouldn’t be a problem knowing which direction to go.

Staggering away from the hospital, Ianto toyed with the idea of getting a cab to Bernie’s flats - those being the closest to him at the moment - but found himself keen to keep the fact he was out of hospital unknown to the rest of the team, especially Tosh. The sound of a cab pulling up would most definitely alert them.

It was a slow process to Bernie’s abode, but Ianto eventually made it. His headache unkindly stayed put. Shouting was what met his eardrums first, hoarse and loud and so very tired. Exhausted, Ianto rested his head on the rough bricks that hid him from the view of the congregation in the middle of the road ahead of him.

Bernie, in a sickly green hoodie, lay sprawled on the hard ground, his face, although far away, clearly twisted in fear. Gwen was crouched over him, crooning softly, Ianto supposed, but her hands prevented Bernie from scrambling up.

Anger flared up in Ianto’s mind and it took him a moment to realise that it was not his own; Owen stood alone, facing someone that Ianto could only guess was Ed Morgan. He had a gleaming knife in his right hand, which pointed precariously towards Ed.

The man in question was restrained, Toshiko on one side, Jack on the other. The young tech was pleading gently with Owen and Ianto could hear her soothing, lilting voice drifting from the road. Her pleas didn’t faze Owen, who, as if in a trance, lifted the knife up to Ed’s splotchy red cheek.

Jack hissed through his teeth, pulling Ed away slightly, but Owen followed. HIs teammate had a horribly wild look in his eye, reminiscent of the time he attacked Jack after his fiance’s death years ago. Distractedly, he noticed Gwen stand up and knew that the ex-PC would start trying to cajole Owen into submission, in a much less pleasant way than Tosh’s current attempts.

Terrified, Ianto sent a sudden spark of thought along his and Owen’s bond - if Owen went through with what he was thinking so intently about, he would end up in prison and Ianto would lose another person that he loved.

At the slightest brush of Ianto’s mind against Owen’s, the medic immediately thought of him (although it wasn’t Ianto’s intention, it certainly had the desired effect), lifeless in a hospital morgue because Owen wasn’t there to take care of him. Pushing further, Ianto made him imagine dear Toshiko sobbing in the autopsy bay, clutching Owen’s lab coat to her chest.

Jack, eyes stormy, in his office. Filling out paperwork stipulating Owen’s abandonment of Torchwood.

Gwen, explaining to her boyfriend why she has someone’s blood on her clothes.

Owen, in a cell. Alone. Cold. Quiet.

He put down the knife, a sharp movement down at both jack and Ianto’s insistence. As if approaching a cornered animal, Gwen warily took it in her hands, the blade still pointing upwards instead of down, or on the ground or somewhere where people wouldn’t get hurt, again and again, and again.

Jack snarled at Owen, his eyebrows furrowed with anger and concern. Almost numbly, the medic nodded, stumbling over to the still shaking, cowering body of Bernie. He crouched, checking over Bernie on auto-pilot.

Toshiko’s sudden scream tore into Ianto’s mind. He saw everything almost in slow motion. Ed was staggering over to Gwen, his arms spread wide, protruding stomach an inch away from the dangerously sharp blade in Gwen’s outstretched hand. Shouting, Jack raced forward, but even in his weakened state, Ianto knew that he wouldn’t make it in time.

Without even thinking, he sent a sharp burst of elemental energy towards Gwen. In any other situation, he could have killed her, but he was so very feeble after the day’s events, so his magic was almost unnoticeable.

Almost.

Toshiko sensed it and saw it when a faint trail of blue shot through Gwen and Ed’s body. The knife seemed to move on its own, twisting from Gwen’s fingers - but Ed still screeched in pain, falling backwards. Crimson stained his shirt, although… the wound, however bad it seemed to look to Tosh’s untrained eyes, wasn’t fatal.

Ianto had saved Ed Morgan’s life.

It was a blur afterwards, Jack yelling at an annoyingly shell-shocked Gwen to call an ambulance. Toshiko moved her roughly away from the scene, ringing for help instead, ignoring Gwen’s whimpers of ‘it’s all my fault, what am I going to do?’ Even now, she made everything about her.

Owen started treating Ed’s wound as best he could, all reluctance that Tosh expected from him gone - he was in his domain now and he knew exactly what he was doing. Absently, Toshiko felt a stream of panic race through her body when she realised what Ianto had done, but found that she was too flustered at the night’s happenings to try and find the young telepath.

Three hours later, when the sun was up and Toshiko had given her statements to the police, she took a cab home. Her eyes were heavy and her limbs were weary and all she wanted to do was collapse in her bed and sleep.

She found Ianto collapsed on her living room floor.

Shocked, Toshiko tried to wake him, having no luck and only receiving a quiet whimper of pain when she tried to move the weak telepath. Biting her lip to stop a sob of despair, Toshiko settled for slowly pushing out the coffee table and sofa from where they trapped Ianto in between them. She pulled one of her many, many blankets from the cupboard she had under the stairs, this one a deep, pleasing purple.

As she curled up beside Ianto, pain medication on hand for when the Gifted woke up, she realised again that she truly did need to protect this wonderful man. No matter the cost.


End file.
